Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter Books: Let's Discuss!

I finished reading “Hannibal” last night, thus missing my goal of reading the first 3 Hannibal Lecter books before the start of season three of the show by 4 weeks but such is life. I find when I really enjoy a book I slow down so I can make it last longer.

“Hannibal” has given me serious book hangover. Like I don’t think I’ll be able to start a new book for a week. I can’t even get excited for the show tomorrow because I’m like “What does it matter, I don’t get to see Clarice and Hannibal happy together.” That’s how book hungover I am. This book also made me do something no other book has achieved: it made me cry twice! And laugh so much for being so fucking over the top. “Silence of the Lambs” also made me cry. So congratulations Mr. Thomas Harris, 2 of the 6 books to make me cry are yours*. I knew the ending of “Hannibal” going into the book, but it was not what I was expecting.

Has anyone else here read the books? Want to discuss them? I would love to discuss them alone, like what’s your take on the end of “Hannibal?” The ending has divided the Hannibal community since its release in 1999. I personally love it.

Or we can talk about the novels in comparison to the show. There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to how they are used in the show and not just in terms of plot. Last week I couldn’t help but notice how much of Clarice’s dialgoue or thoughts were turned into dialogue and given to Alana. Basically 80% of everything she said to Mason was originally Clarice’s in “Hannibal.” What do you think of the show turning Margot into a femme lesbian instead of the body builder, steriod taking lesbian she was in the book?

Can you not wait to return to canon and be graced by Dolarhyde? I am personally excited to see how Tara from “True Blood” will portray Reba. I love the Dolarhyde/Reba storyline because it’s so sweet yet tragic.

*The other novels to make me cry for those who are curious: “Villette” by Charlotte Bronte, “Little Women” by Louis May Alcott, “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath and “The Virgin Suicides” by Jeffrey Eugenides.

11 Comments

car54Jul 02, 2015
When Alana showed up last week at the Verger’s I said immediately—they are going to use her to play the role Clarice played in the books—and if they do it the way I think it will go, I can see it working. I went to school with Joan Allen and knew her pretty well, and she’ll always be Reba for me, but I am looking forward to that whole story on the tv show. I think by the way in which Fuller inserted Will into Margot’s life and her losing the baby, it changes the TV show’s Margot from what we saw in the book and movie. I actually thought the book Margot was a little one-dimensional and I think there is potential for the one in this show to have a lot more layers and levels based on her relationship with Will and Hannibal. One part of the books that I loved that I have gone back to over and over in my mind watching the TV show is the parts after the war when Hannibal is found and sent to his uncle and that whole period where he is a medical student earning his keep by doing illustrations of human dissections and starts his killing —the beautiful drawings, his memory palace, all happen in that part of the story and I loved his relationship with Lady Murasaki—and the fact that he loved her but when she faced what he really is, she wanted him out of her life. I think it somehow ties into the big finale where Hannibal is going to take his loves—Will and Abigail away and at the very end, he rejects them and (tries to) kill them. I think Hannibal is not Hannibal because of the trauma of his parents and Misha’s death, but I do think a lot of who he is -is in those parts of the story—and I kind of loved it. I love the way all of the people who Hannibal has wronged in the series are now circling around -Dr Chilton, Alana—can you imagine how she lay in her hospital bed helpless and alone for a long time probably going over and over how she allowed Hannibal to fool her and take advantage of her—I’d be so full of anger at this point. I really think it makes sense for Alana to take that role in this story—and Dr Alan Bloom does not have much to do in the Red Dragon story. The part I’m dreading is that I really like Freddie and I don’t want her to go the way she/he does in the book.

MissCrystalJul 02, 2015
I’m not quite sure Alana will be playing 100% of Clarice’s role. Hannibal is no longer interested in her so they can’t use her as bait they way they did Clarice. I totally agree what makes Hannibal who he is is so much more than his parents death and what happened to Mischa. Those are just the events he latched onto. I love that Fuller turned Alan Bloom into Alana and made her a main character. He was hardly in Red Dragon. He was mostly talked about as this great guy you never saw. I don’t want Freddie to go either because I like her. And I don’t know how they’ll take her out since they already used the wheelchair on fire.

car54Jul 02, 2015
You’re right she can’t be Clarice, but there are parts of the narrative where she can be that voice in the story without tainting it. The whole timeline is a little twisted with and there is much more of an organized effort by others —instead of just Jack and Will to bring Hannibal to justice. I kind of love Chilton and in the books and movies he is kind of a tool, but I like this actor so much -that I love that he’s going to be much more involved than as just Hannibal’s keeper. I am also wondering if Cynthia Nixon’s character is going to be Ray Liotta’s character. I’m not sure I want to see Miranda Hobbes fed her own brain for dinner. :) I read some comment about her —I think from the costume designer that made me think she’d be back this season.

Maggie PyeJul 02, 2015
I’ve read the books, and they’re in fact a frequent (annual or so) re-read for me—at least, the first two, and then Hannibal up to a point. (I’m in the other camp on the ending.) I’ve read Hannibal Rising once, and that was plenty. I’m sort of torn on Margot. I mean, I’d love to see more butch lesbians on TV—because with only a few exceptions, they tend to be really femme—but I also always feel cringe-y and not good with some of the way Harris wrote Margot, so I don’t mind the distance from book-Margot. Which probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, the way I’ve just written it, sorry. I am eager to see what the series makes of Red Dragon, though! (I love Silence more than Red Dragon, in terms of the books, but I’m way more interested in Dolarhyde than I ever was in Buffalo Bill.)

MissCrystalJul 02, 2015
May I ask what puts you in the other camp on the ending? I’d love to have an actual discussion about it because so many other places where it comes up, the people who love the ending (like myself) always end up, I don’t want to say shamed, but made to feel like there is something wrong with them because how can we support that? And then any literary and intellectual discussion never happens. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine. :) I tend to see book Margot as a product of her time in a way. Yes, women like her still exisit and always will but the way they are potrayed and seen has changed since Harris wrote the book. I think when Clarice first meets Margot captures that very well. Clarice is a very judgemental person and she’s known Margot what a minute and we get like a long thought paragraph of the most butch dyke stereotypes possible. I was like “Whoa Clarice! I love you but can we turn it down to an 11.” I too love Silence more than Red Dragon but find Dolarhyde more interesting than Buffalo Bill. I was also completely disappointed that Buffalo Bill did not once say “Put the lotion in the basket” in the book. So I guess props to the screenwriter on that one.

Maggie PyeJul 02, 2015
As a not-femme lesbian who had been an adult for quite a while when the book was written, though, I just found all the description of Margot to feel like this book in a series I had enjoyed had personally decided to attack me. Which is all about my feelings, not about OMG THIS BOOK IS EVIL, but I did find it really unpleasant and unnecessary, and I still skim a lot of the worst of it. (And I’m halfway glad they didn’t go that route in the TV show, because I still do not trust television to not be awful, even when they mean well.) The ending just kicked my suspension of disbelief in the head, that’s all. I mean, Hannibal Lecter requires a lot of that in the first place, and it just got to be too much for my personal ability to just go with the flow. It also felt—again, to me—like Clarice changed from a character I had really really liked, into someone else entirely. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people who do like the ending; it just really did not work for me. So I stop rereading when they escape.

kristinbytesJul 02, 2015
I still have not read the books. I will but probably not until the fall. Summer is just to short and busy in this part of the world for me to read much. I can’t even keep up with my internetting. Also, I did not know The Virgin Suicides was a book. I saw the Sophia Coppola movie many years ago and it will come as a surprise to no one that I really like her work. I really need to win the lottery because I don’t have nearly enough time to keep up with my entertainments with having to work every day.

MissCrystalJul 02, 2015
Sophia Coppola’s movie actually does a very good job of caputring the feel of the book. And the changes that were made actually made sense in a movie adaptation. The movie is one of my favorites but like 99% of the time the book is still better.

uualternateJul 02, 2015
I’m curious to know, having not read, how much of Hannibal’s Primavera has been completed?

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